Fourth World Eye Blog

In a recent YES! Magazine article entitled Beyond “Free” or “Fair” Trade: Mexican Farmers Go Local, Mike Wold highlights the devastating effects that NAFTA has had on indigenous campesinos (farmers) in Mexico and the creative agricultural and entrepreneurial responses they are choosing to assert. By deconstructing the dichotomy between Free and Fair Trade, the article emphasizes the life-supporting role that local food movements can have everywhere--rather than being limited to wealthy consumers in the global north. When factoring in the health of their community—physically, emotionally, and economically—indigenous campesinos recognize that a re-localization of their food system is imperative to their bio-cultural survival and living autonomy.